SCULPTURES OD MANUEL ROSA

Sculptures by Manuel Rosa. Works from the Serralves Collection.

Manuel Rosa (Beja, 1953), graduated from the Lisbon School of Fine Arts (ESBAL) in 1978. He pertains to the generation of artists who radically transformed the world of stone sculpture in Portugal in the 1980s. During his career Rosa has primarily worked with limestone to produce his sculptures. Initially dedicated to figurative art, his works were subsequently immediately recognisable by their absolute purification, including elliptic and conical forms, and decidedly modern execution processes, such as the use of an electric saw, sectioning and superimposition of various parts and a rudimentary, almost schematic, modelling of the surfaces that eliminated any naturalistic intent.

In these two sculptures, both produced in 1987, we recognise the archetypes of canoes. A common characteristic of Manuel Rosa’s sculptures is his attention to the essential, while calling to mind easily recognizable archetypes – such as the human figure, house, boat – and attempting, through them, to attain the pure Platonic form.

‘Sculptures by Manuel Rosa’ is part of a programme of exhibitions and sited presentations of works from the Serralves Collection that furthers the museum’s aim of making the collection visible and accessible to a broader public around the country.